This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
This may in part be motivated by new guidance from NCAP, which will from next year require that all new cars have physical controls to earn the highest safety ratings.
Whatever the motivation though, I'm glad for it. Getting rid of buttons was always a dumb idea and I'm happy to see pushback.
It wasn't dumb from corporate perspective, which is why they all gobbled it up like junky hoovering on piles of white dust.
You know how expensive it is to mold unique dedicated physical buttons for every function and then wire them all over the place? Or just slap single touch display and cram all the shit into that single display. You code it once and use it on all models. Corporates were already counting the money saved there. Until it backfired because everyone hated it, reviewers criticized it and now it's finally also criticized by safety agencies.
Cars cost way too much for me to care about this excuse.
Yeah, but what about the value that saving money created for the shareholders?
You know how expensive it is to mold unique dedicated physical buttons for every function and then wire them all over the place?
Not expensive. You don't have to "wire them all over the place", you just put them on a PCB and connect them to the nearest CAN bus, or similar.
They'd basically already be doing that for the touch screen, and may well be using similar controls under the hood, where the physical buttons send a command to the computer to do a thing, in lieu of a mechanical connection.
One more connector, one more cable in harness, more coding, more cad time, more manufacturing time and more testing.
If it comes out to 20 dollars per car and you multiply it by 50000 a year for a relatively popular model there is a nice bonus for the ceo. Oh, and the price to consumer increases at the same time.
If it comes out to 20 dollars per car and you multiply it by 50000 a year for a relatively popular model there is a nice bonus for the ceo.
Or you could just raise the price of the car by $20 since you've just added thousands in value?
I mean shit, let's take the seats out of the car! Bam! Just saved you billions, right? /s
As well as the pure cost saving there was also the notion that it was a futuristic look that would sell, and so boost profits that way, too.
And probably it did sell and market well - for a while.
I feel that consumers had become too trusting of carmakers - after all, cars have been getting better and better in terms of their usability for decades, so when carmakers went touchscreen everything, the first instinct of the average consumer would be to trust it and assume it represented an improvement."They wouldn't do it if it was worse, right?"
And so people buy the fancy futuristic car with no buttons, and only after driving it for a month does it sink in how much they truly hate it, and that they got sold a lie.
So there was always going to be that one generation of touchscreen-everything, before the people who got burnt by it are now the ones thinking "I won't buy anything again that doesn't have some buttons!"
Without actually knowing how much constructing the physical buttons cost, I would guess that the real savings are in process optimization - if all you have for the interface is a screen, then you don't need to have the interface design done before constructing the car - you can parallelize these tasks.
Insufficient as far as justifications go, but understandably lucrative.
You can even have that single display collect so much car user data and sell that too
Physical controls don't change this.
Hyundai (motor group) and some time later VW group announced that they are bringing physical buttons back.
March of 2023
As it turns out though, sometimes the old ways are best. Hyundai certainly thinks so, as it has pledged to employ real physical buttons in products to come.
December of 2023
https://insideevs.com/news/701296/vw-physical-controls-to-return/
Now get rid of the touch screen entirely. Mark my words, the first electric car unveiled as a totally analog experience will be incredibly popular.
It's been a long time since I looked but I hope most cars still have physical buttons/controls for all important functions! Besides being easier and faster to use, without them if a touchscreen malfunctions (hardware or software) everything is gone and you wouldn't be able to drive the car. Then there's the tracking and spying, and sometimes bugs and UI changes after updates--and now ads!?# Cars are becoming as enshittified like everything else now.
Not sure how they were able to remove so many buttons in the first place and not be marked down on safety. Suddenly trying to find a demister on a touchscreen menu while in motion was never a great idea. Surprisingly, Volvo off all companies have been one of the worst for this. That's why I like Dacias, little tech = little to go wrong.
And Volvo went from this:
To this:
Which is quite the change...
OTOH now we will get to enjoy dashcam videos of car rollovers where the driver is like, Where's that playlist... OH GOD OH SHIT !!!
I mean it was a great idea of you wanted to reduce costs while also increasing the price of the vehicle.
And it looks nice.
Now, take out the bullshit that's tracking you and sending the information back to them to sell, and we'll be doing something great
That’s why I love brands like Hyundai. Never got rid of the knobs.
Honda as well.
Subaru went all in on the touch screen and it suuuuucked.
My uncle's outback looks like a video slot machine, and everything had to be done through the touchscreen. But to add insult to injury, the Subaru touchscreens are super slow and unresponsive, so they feel like they aren't working.
Yep. And mazda has physical climate button/knobs, with a physical dial to control the infotainment (it's pretty convenient, if a bit of an older design on most of their vehicles).
I consider it space-age. I haven't driven a non-Mazda that seemed as well thought out and functional. I wish I could rip one out and put it on my non-Mazda car. I breath a sigh of relief that my partner didn't buy the Honda with a long finicky touchstrip to control the volume instead of a knob.
Same as BMW iDrive. I'm sure some are touch screen, but you don't have to use it.
I got in right before Subaru went that way and ended up with the best of both worlds: a touchscreen for CarPlay and knobs for...everything else. I still have knobs for the radio if need be.
Plus it's a six speed manual (Crosstrek).
I get a flyer from the dealership every other week asking if I want to "upgrade." Sorry, fellas, nothing you have is an upgrade to me. You can't get a manual gearbox here any more.
You can’t get a manual gearbox here any more.
Another factor contributing to the discontinuation of manual transmissions is the increasing emphasis on safety features and the integration of advanced driver-assist technologies.
Ew.
It's frustrating because "the consumer" doesn't want manuals, yet car makers add all these things that keep people from paying attention to the road making it - in my opinion - too easy to get distracted. I like that I can't hold my phone in my hand and drive because I need to shift.
Last summer I was in Ireland, and I was peeking in a few cars on parked on the side of the road just out of curiosity. Almost every one was a manual, it seemed like. It's not that we COULDN'T have fun, manual cars here. But Americans are lazy.
I have a Hyundai ioniq 5 and it definitely has touch buttons for some of the things, like climate control.
I've never had this problem because I'm too poor to afford a car new enough to not have any buttons lmao
Aw, just when they were about to get rid of the steering wheel, shame.
hoping the whole industry follows after, please subaru go back to the climate control buttons
That's very positive.
Not out of the goodness of their own hearts mind. It's probably more because Euro NCAP are going to be deducting score for not having physical essentials in 2026.
Thank you! Now bring back physical keys too!
The very definition of the solution looking for a problem that one.
Oh look I don't have to put the keys in the ignition that saved me a whole tenth of a second. Of course now it's possible to lose my keys in my own car.
Even without the new EU regulations on this, I bet VW was already planning on doing this. The widespread backlash to the non-illuminated capacitive touch controls on the newest Golf GTIs/Rs was significant. I wouldn't have bought one of those, and a Golf R is basically my dream car.
I've been passing on a Golf R for the past 3 years for this exact reason.
I dunno. Cadillac has been doing this for decades and show no sign of stopping. I had them in my Chevy Volt and they were infuriating.
Thank you!
I don't care what the reasoning is behind the decision (customer feedback vs. changes to safety ratings), I'm just glad it's happening and I hope all manufacturers follow suit.
This has been my gripe with new cars ever since I found myself needing one in 2022. Everything I looked at had a huge infotainment system front-ending climate and cabin controls. Want to turn your steering wheel heat off mid drive? Ha! Tap this specific spot on this screen 3 times and hope the car doesn't bounce while you're doing so or you'll accidentally turn something else on. Want to use voice controls? Joke's on you, they only work 50% of the time.
God forbid something happens to the control board (which costs thousands of dollars to replace if you're outside warranty), because then you're completely hosed.
You know what always worked without fail? The buttons in my 2005 Corolla.
Good
